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I Am Tired of Bogus Measurements

My expensive shoes have measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will they fit. My expensive new suit has measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will my expensive new shoes match.

The people being misled by measruements aren’t being led my manufacturers, they are being misled by reviewers. Idiotic rankings of digital gear based on measurements outside the range of human hearing. Cancelling entire brands who put out features customers actually want as they sell to humans, not bats. The worst of these websites will rant about their own superior $$$ equipment but mot even one person will ever use speakers in a klippel matchine, they actually put them in a room! The horror. The cancelling of brands, the talking down to the customers, is bogus.

You need to measure what matters! Are the customers actually happy? Is the warranty honored? Most importantly is their an in home audition period?
I don’t need someone to tell me if I could or should like a product. My room is not a test bench, or a klippel machine. Who cares what the component measures by itself because unless its a clock radio I’ll never use it by itself, I have to interconnect it in a "system" with "high quality" cables, (as in all cables are not the same).

If you want to measure something measure how your personal system of curated components interact with your room. That’s it. The rest of the stuff you could forget because these days if a brand overpromises and under delivers they will be following a formula for losing money, an no company likes that.

kota1
kota1 OP
2,706 posts
 

I don't think it's correct to say they are "bogus". 

I think its fair to see what the specs of a product are. Where "bogus" begins is when you attach judgement. Look at stereophile, they measure stuff all the time but they don't hand out prizes or cancels because of measurements. That's legit, leave it to the customers to decide.

ASR isn't the first or the last to try and cash in on being the gatekeeper to audio. Gene Dellasalla at Audioholics has some great videos but he clearly has  an agenda that he is the snake killer, but he is more venomous than the companies he trashes. 

kota1 OP
2,706 posts
 

@yoyoyaya

I like your line of thought, thanks for participating in the discussion. If I take speakers that measure well, and an amp that measures well, and a preamp that measures well, and a streamer that measures well and the whole kit cost $20K, what should I do? Buy?

When I see a reviewer tout a measurement, any measurement, as a YES or NO to that question I stick them in the bogus pile. Sadly someone, who would have otherwise compared and used judgement, jumped in and spent actual cash because he doesn’t have a test bench? No.

Again, no one website is the first to discover the power of click bait, and won’t be the last.

willywonka
275 posts
 

Some measurements are important, and many manufacturers are not honest about them. The two biggest ones for me are related to Tube amplifier power and Speaker sensitivity. I want to know if a tube amplifier power claims are made by measurements at 1% distortion or 10% distortion. There is no standard for this, and power ratings are all over the place. Also, speaker sensitivity ratings don't seem to mean much anymore. I've seen claimed ratings by the manufacturer being 8 dB lower when actually measured. Did things get worse when they changed the measurement process at 1W/1 Meter compared to 2.83V/1 Meter?

carlsbad's avatar
carlsbad
1,551 posts
 

Vendors can’t publish their numbers very well unless there is a standard measurement technique and then people need to know what to do with it. In the 70s and 80s, every amp had to be <.25% THD or nobody would buy it. But there was a lot of lying.

Most people posting here have never worked in a lab. But I’ll tell you it is much less expensive to find a way to improve your measurements than to improve your product.

Publishing a bunch of numbers that the reader doesn’t understand and that don’t really tell you how a component sounds is perfect for the internet age where everyone thinks they can be an expert on everything by reading google.

Jerry

kota1 OP
2,706 posts
 

@willywonka

and many manufacturers are not honest about them.

Which ones, specifically?

There is no standard for this, and power ratings are all over the place.

It is actually much worse, power grids are all over the place. NYC is different than the Catskills power grid, go figure.

Also, speaker sensitivity ratings don’t seem to mean much anymore.

Which speakers and what customer? Are you saying specs, as a general rule, are fake?

I’ve seen claimed ratings by the manufacturer being 8 dB lower when actually measured.

Again its actually much worse, parts are allowed to be with x% of tolerances. If you buy a speaker and 3 parts are "within tolerance" but not the same you have no way of knowing what you got, no matter how the sample measured. Which goes back to auditioning.

Dr David Rich:

Passive components have tolerances. Capacitors and inductors are within 5% or even 10% of the specified value. The speaker’s impedance also varies from sample to sample. Combine all the tolerance changes of each component and the desired frequency response of the speaker has changed by a significant amount. This results in pair matching errors that effect stereo imaging.

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